My rating: ⭐⭐
From the cover:
"When we left Kim Cruz in Changers Book 3, she'd just come out to her best friend. In Changers Book 4: Forever, Kim discovers that this is only one small part of understanding who she is and where she belongs. Soon enough, she changes again, into the body and social status of her dreams. What she does with her newfound power will come to haunt her. In this final installment of the provocative Changers series, our hero learns what it means to be the person everybody loves without actually being known at all; what it's like to be given the benefit of the doubt when you don't deserve it; and how easily opportunity comes when you look the part. Changers Book 4 explores what it means to find yourself--even as your self keeps changing--and how in the end we become the person whose story we want to finish."
When this series first came to my attention, I was like uhh, yes, obviously I will be reading these books. The first book did not disappoint...it was fascinating to read a book like this, about someone coming to terms with their changing identity, seeing Drew struggle with social dynamics at school and learn about herself along the way. I've been putting off writing this review though, because while I was impressed with and drawn into the first book, the second and third were not quite as enjoyable, and as much as I wanted to be able to gush about the series, this fourth book...I didn't like it.
Where the strength of book 1 lies is in examining social expectations and dynamics. That was a central point in Drew's story, and if that focus had remained consistent through the last three books this would have been a stronger series. It went off the rails, though, throwing in the drama of the Abiders, kidnapping, murder, etc. This just didn't work for me. There were several separate storylines, each more ridiculous than the last, and none of them were incorporated into the others, which was jarring. Also, whether it be a traditional three-act or something else, I need some kind of structure, and this book didn't have one. Every chapter was up and down, back and forth. Kyle's emotions shift so quickly, and for reasons difficult to understand, that it was exhausting reading about him. One page Audrey hates him, the next she loves him, then she hates him again...honestly, this fourth book reads like a rough draft, like the goal was "get everything on the page, and then we'll go back, edit, and move some stuff around"...except that second part never happened. Not great.
Perhaps I could have tried to look past the rough quality of the writing itself, but the nail in the coffin for me was the very casual inclusion of suicide. Maybe that wasn't the authors' intention, but the way it was thrown in, as though it was an unimportant side story, really bothered me. Kim wakes up as Kyle and, next page, apropos of nothing, he's on a bridge attempting suicide. Now, I suppose to their credit, this chapter does end with the woman who stopped him reminding him, "be mindful...that you don't pick a permanent solution to a temporary problem." That doesn't do much to make up for such offhand use of suicide as a plot device, though, particularly when later they casually throw in during a fit of angst later the thought that he "can't stay. Can't leave. Can't kill [himself]. Can't build an Alien sleeping capsule and seal the door for nine months." Just...no.
I'm sad I didn't love this series. I really wanted to. But ultimately the plot was all over the place, with too many ideas crammed into one series, and while the handling of topics like racism and gender identity were done well, others, like mental health, were treated too lightly. It was too unbalanced for my taste.
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